5 Writing Exercises That Will Make You More Creative. #2.
Cheat on Your Story Stockbyte/Stockbyte/Getty Images Fuck your novel, anyway. That thing's been giving you nothing but trouble: Ignore the bastard for an hour or two and go play with something else. Pull your favorite toy out of whatever you're working on -- a character you like, an interesting setting -- and take it to a friend's house. An Example: ... will mean nothing to you here, because it would be a tangential spin-off of a supporting character from a project that you don't know even know that I'm working on. . #1. Thomas Northcut/Photodisc/Getty Are you sick of dealing with your project?
Don't worry, there's an easy fix: Just steal somebody else's work! Remember: They can only prosecute if you try to use it. "Whatever," RoboCop said, "I didn't want to come here anyway. " "That's a great attitude," Officer Lewis snapped. "I wanted to stay home and watch TV! " "Well, you can't, OK? "What?! " "I guess you won't," Officer Lewis answered coolly. "There," RoboCop said. 5 Tips for Punching Writer's Block in the Face. People frequently ask me for writing advice, because professional writing is as fiercely competitive as it is desired, because they mistake me for the respected poet by the same name, or possibly just because the world is not a fair place and the God of Words wants them to fail in the most extravagant and embarrassing way possible.
What these people are most concerned about, judging by the sheer number of requests, is really just one thing: "How do I get past this accursed writer's block? " While I may not be the right authority to help you with quality writing, I can sure as hell help you with quantity. If your muse is currently giving you the Kato Kaelin treatment, maybe try some of these handy tips and get that lazy wad off the couch and working again. #5.
Know What You Write Jupiterimages/BananaStock/Getty Images The old saying is "write what you know," and that's sound advice. Does the pivotal scene of your genre-defying action adventure take place in your own living room? #4. . #3. Top 10 Storytelling Cliches Writers Need To Stop Using. Cliché is the enemy of good writing.
We, as writers, are trained to kill clichéd phrases in sentences. But that's not the only place they can hide—they can infect the spaces between the words, too. Clichés can infect storytelling techniques. Need to build some tension? Have a time bomb with a digital readout slowly ticking down to zero! Is your narrator a dick? Want to get all writerly in conveying the plot? These are storytelling devices that pop up again and again, crutches for the writer to lean on and help move the story along without actually having to stretch their abilities. 1. Why it's easy: Describing a character when you're writing in the third person is pretty easy when the narrative voice is omniscient.
Why it's a cop out: It's lazy, it's been done to death, and anyway, no one looks in a mirror and takes stock of all their features in severe detail. 2. Why it's a cop out: This is the "little did he know" principle of storytelling. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Those are mine. Some thoughts and musings about making things for the web. Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling - Tubefilter.